Abortion Supported By 70% In The U.S.? Not So Fast...

One statistic I keep running into that desperately needs looking at is the stat used by pro-abortionists that 70% of the people in the United States strongly support the right to abortion. Not so much because, given the right massaging of words and an unknowing audience of questionees you can create a 90-100% support or opposition rate, but because of how people believe and why.

More to the point: when I read a book on alternative history ("Lies They Taught Me"), they talked about the Bombing in North Vietnam. Interesting, the majority of Americans (US) supported the bombing UNTIL the bombing stopped, at which point the majority opposed the bombings.

Now, this was not due to some great awakening. More to the point, it's because a sizeable portion of people have little opinion (outside of the idea that whatever's now popular is okay by them) on any subject. It's not necessarily the same people, but any question will have that portion of respondents who go the way the wind's blowing.

How does that impact on the Abortion issue?

Right now, about seventy percent agree with or accept the present situation -- abortion being legal with some limitations. Now the question that comes to my mind is: How much of that is bedrock support, and how much of it is support for whatever is legal at the time.

A Prediction: If the anti-abortionists get most or all of their wish -- Roe v Wade adjusted or inverted to the point where the courts use it to ban abortion -- there will be a sizeable amount of newfound support coming from those who show up on the 70% pro-abortion rights side because right now the laws are pro-abortion (with limits). In short, the anti-abortionists will get their majority thanks to people who, upon seeing the abortion laws change, justify the changes to themselves.

The question, of course, is how many stand in support of abortion rights no matter what. If that number is in the forties a year after the change, there's a chance for a loosening of the anti-abortion laws. If the number drops into the mid-twenties or below the radical right may want to think about pushing through an amendment defining life as starting upon ejaculation of the male (can't risk condom use now can you -- oh, wait, that's pre-emptory abortions...), as the core support for an anti-conception amendment would prove bigger and stronger than the core opposition against such an amendment.

[And as for my use of terms: "life" and "choice" are but mis-defining euphamisms for what's being discussed here. A fetus can't survive outside the womb unhurt for most of its developmental period, but the act itself seeks to stop what would normally develop. I'm just talking about abortion and my surmise of those who support it; nothing else, nothing more.]